The Next Nine Months

Evening Armory Park residents,

At the most recent Downtown Neighborhoods and Residents Council, I learned that there are a great number of projects, of all shapes and sizes, that will either hit significant mile posts, break ground, or be completed within the next nine months. I’ve included a list here to give you a taste of what’s to come, for better or worse:

The Citizen-Advisory-Council portion of Downtown Links will be nearly complete by December, with 90% of the plans drawn.

The Streetcar will be up and running, with a grand whistle-stop ceremony on July 25.

The City Bond Selection Committee will largely be complete by October or November.

The Bournes Project at Stone and Broadway will be built-out.

The apartments at 16th and Stone will be under construction.

The hotel at 5th and Broadway, with an estimated 150 rooms, will be under construction.

The Johnny Gibson Market will be running by December.

The Request for Proposals for the Ronstadt Transit Center will be come due in August (I think).

The 9 acre Request for Proposals by Rio Nuevo will be back in one month.

The Norville’s Project (a plan to build an exhibition hall where the temporary gem show tents go up) will either be under construction or fall apart.

The Eckbo Fountain may or may not be added to the County Bond Package.

La Placita may have changed hands.

The Request for Proposals for development on the West side of the Santa Cruz should be out.

The Paseo Redondo Request for Proposal may be out by then.

Pizzeria Bianco will be open in a few weeks.

Beyond Bread might be coming downtown.

Three other letters of intent have been submitted for other businesses coming downtown, and in nine months, downtown will have filled all of its current retail space.

The Gadsen Company will be breaking ground on working-class housing downtown.

Wig-Orama will be back in business in their former location.

Roy Place will be complete in the next three to four months.

The space near Ikes may become home to an architecture firm coming downtown.

The County Courthouse will be complete.

More streetscape improvements—shade, murals, planting, etc—will be in place to for the Streetcar opening.

This is a rough list of everything going on, and I’m sure I’ve missed something. Nevertheless, I thought you all might like to know what’s going down. Should be a wild time.